What Your Countertop Reveals About Your Weight

Here’s a sneaky and fun pastime. Take a look at what foods are sitting on your neighbors’ countertops, then take a look at your neighbors. See anything interesting? Researchers at Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab tried it, and here’s what they saw. The Cornell Chronicle reports that researchers looked at photographs of more than 200 kitchens in Syracuse, New York, then they looked at the body mass index of the people who lived there. Ready? The envelope please…..The researchers found that women who kept fresh fruit out in the open tended to be a normal weight compared with their peers. But when snacks like cereals and sodas were readily accessible, residents were heavier than their neighbors – by an average of more than 20 pounds. In fact, women who had a fruit bowl visible weighed about 13 pounds less than neighbors who didn’t. No, it’s not that normal weight women didn’t eat snack foods, but they were more likely to stash them in a special cupboard for snacks, and they were less likely to buy food in large packages than those who are obese.